Coca-Cola in Africa: a long history full of unexpected twists and turns
Retrieved on:
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
A new book called Bottled: How Coca-Cola Became African tells the story of how the world’s most famous carbonated drink conquered the continent.
Key Points:
- A new book called Bottled: How Coca-Cola Became African tells the story of how the world’s most famous carbonated drink conquered the continent.
- We asked her some questions about the book.
What do you hope readers will take away?
- The first is that while Africa is largely absent from books on Coca-Cola, the company’s imprint on the continent is enormous.
- Most estimates put Coke as one of the largest private employers in Africa, if not the largest.
- Arriving in Africa in the early 1900s, it’s a story that is deeply and, often surprisingly, entangled with key moments in African history.
- Its ubiquity thus tells us something about African engagement with a consumer product as well as the many ways in which ordinary people wield power.
How did Coca-Cola first arrive in Africa?
- It sells a concentrate, which comes from a handful of locations around the globe, including Egypt and Eswatini.
- This concentrate is sold to licensed bottlers who then mix it with local forms of sugar and water before carbonating and bottling or canning it.
- Coca-Cola lore says that the company first secured local bottlers for its concentrate in South Africa in 1928, its first stop on the African continent.
What role did it play in apartheid South Africa?
- Coca-Cola was entrenched in South Africa before the advent of the racist, white minority apartheid state in 1948.
- While the company largely attempted to stay out of politics in South Africa, much as it did elsewhere in the world, it resisted certain “petty apartheid” rules.
- For example, the washrooms and lunchrooms in its plants were open to all ethnic groups, unlike the “whites only” facilities established under apartheid.
- It then moved its concentrate plant to neighbouring Eswatini, leaving Coca-Cola with no assets or employees in South Africa.
Sara Byala does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.